Is Ark ASA worth it?

I currently play ASE and my boyfriend is interested in playing ASA, we didn’t like the tether on ASE and I’m wondering if it’s changed at all? Has the distance increased at least? As I know it’s not removable.

We only have 2 PS5 so we can’t run a server to remove the tether, I know to can pay monthly for a server but in honesty I have no idea how that works haha.

We just want to play Ark ASE together without the worry we are going to be teleported to each other while flying, swimming or taming, etc.